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US President Donald Trump repeated his complaint about NATO after a closed-door meeting with the alliance's Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Wednesday for discussions that had been expected to be aimed at soothing Trump's anger with the military alliance over the Iran war. Ahead of the private meeting, Trump had suggested the US may consider leaving the trans-Atlantic alliance after NATO member countries ignored his call to help as Iran effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping waterway, and sent gas prices soaring. Afterward, he issued an all-caps comment on social media suggesting he remained aggrieved. "NATO WASN'T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON'T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN," Trump said in his post. The White House did not immediately offer any further updates. The Republican president has had a warm relationship with Rutte in the past, and the meeting came after the US and Iran late Tuesday agreed to a two-week ceasefire that includes the reopening of
US President Donald Trump has lashed out at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), accusing the alliance and other friendly nations such as South Korea, Japan and Australia of failing to help the US in the Iran war. Trump's remarks at a press conference at the White House on Monday came days ahead of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's visit to Washington to meet the US President, who has dismissed the alliance as a "paper tiger". Trump said the war with Iran had left a mark on NATO "that will never disappear in my mind." The US President made it clear that the differences with NATO began when it spurned his move to take Greenland. "NATO is a paper tiger that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's not afraid of," Trump told reporters here. On the Iran war, Trump said NATO members actually "went out of their way not to help". "Look, we went to NATO. I didn't ask very strongly, I just said, 'Hey, if you want to help, great'," the US President said. "'No, no, no, we will not
Almost three dozen countries will meet Thursday in an effort to exert diplomatic and political pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route that has been choked off by the US-Israeli war against Iran. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the virtual meeting chaired by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper "will assess all viable diplomatic and political measures we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers and to resume the movement of vital commodities". Iranian attacks on commercial ships, and the threat of more, have halted nearly all traffic in the waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the rest of the globe's oceans, shutting a critical path for the world's flow of oil and sending petroleum prices soaring. The US is not among the countries attending Thursday's meeting. Trump has said securing the waterway is not America's job, and told US allies to "go get your own oil". No country appears willing to try
President Donald Trump said Tuesday NATO and most other allies have rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, grousing that he has been unable to rally support behind his war of choice in Iran that he insists he's conducting for the good of the world, even if it doesn't appreciate his effort. Trump, who has been pressing allies to help safeguard the critical waterway to ease a chokepoint on the region's oil exports, fumed that the U.S. is not getting support "despite the fact that we helped" NATO "so much," and said that it was in allies' interest to prevent Iran from securing a nuclear weapon. Trump's indignant response to allies' refusal to get involved in the war underscored that the conflict - now in its third week and causing reverberations across the global economy - is one the international community is looking to the U.S. leader to sort out himself after he launched it without consultation. "You would have thought they would have said, We'd love to send a coupl
NATO defences on Friday intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Iran over Turkiye, the Defense Ministry said. It marked the third such incident since the start of the Iran war. Turkiyes Defence Ministry said the missile was destroyed by NATO air defences deployed in the eastern Mediterranean. Residents in the southern city of Adana reported hearing a loud explosion and sirens sounding at Incirlik Air Base, which is used by US forces, in the early hours of Friday. No casualties were reported. This week, NATO deployed an additional Patriot air defense system in the southeastern province of Malatya, where the Kurecik radar station is based. The Defence Ministry stressed Thursday that Incirlik is a Turkish base and that the foreign troop presence doesn't alter the base's status in an apparent response to warnings from Tehran to regional countries not to host US military bases.
NATO spokesperson Allison Hart on Wednesday condemned "Iran's targeting of Turkey" but she did not confirm whether the military organisation's air defences were used to down the missile. "NATO stands firmly with all allies, including Turkey, as Iran continues its indiscriminate attacks across the region," she said. "Our deterrence and defense posture remains strong across all domains, including when it comes to air and missile defence." Asked whether NATO air defences were used, Hart said she "can't get into operational details." NATO has parts of a broader European ballistic missile defence system on Turkish soil, including an early warning radar at the Kurecik base which can detect missiles from Iran.